As "Game of Thrones" wound down its penultimate season, veteran director Alan Taylor was back behind the camera for the epic dragon vs. Night King battle in "Beyond the Wall."

Taylor last worked on the series for the notable final two episodes of season one — "Baelor" and "Fire and Blood" — in which Ned Stark was beheaded and Daenerys lost Khal Drogo and her unborn son, only to birth three dragons from a magical pyre.

INSIDER spoke with Taylor about returning to the series for another huge chapter and what George R.R. Martin told him all those years ago about Jon and Daenerys.

Kim Renfro: Thank you for taking the time to talk, I'm sure it's been a busy day for you post-episode airing and all.

Alan Taylor: Yeah, that's one thing that's changed since I was last involved with the show — it's gotten bigger in so many ways. The last time I was doing it no one was dying to talk to me directly the day after. But it's become a phenomenon in the meantime so it's cool that people have so much appetite for it.

Ned Stark's death was an iconic moment for Taylor to direct. HBO

Renfro: Your work season one seems to neatly thread into "Beyond the Wall." Daenerys was looking after Drogo and she lost her human child in episode nine, and now she's lost her dragon-child. Can you walk me through how you wove those themes into this new episode?

Taylor: It's nice that you caught all that. Personally it was really satisfying because I've been away for such a long time. So it was nice to come back and speak to my previous storytelling with some things you're mentioning — Dany is falling in love again and Dany loses a child again.

Daenerys sat next to Drogo as he lay wounded, much like she does with Jon on "Beyond the Wall." HBO

Also I love that I got a scene with Arya and Sansa talking to each other and both reliving that day when their father died in front of them. I was there that day with them when they were little kids, it was a delight to come back now that they've grown so much as actors and characters and things have darkened.

We've all been through hell and now we're back and picking up the story, so it was a real pleasure to share the history that they were drawing on when they were having these scenes. And also I was there when we gave birth to the dragons in the first season, and now here to have one of them die, it felt like a nice circle being closed.

Renfro: I read in a Deadline interview that George R.R. Martin was on set with you back in that first season, when these ideas that were just small seeds. Now that they've grown into massive storylines, what is it like thinking back to that?

Taylor: Well, every once in awhile you get a glimpse of the scale he was working at. One of the big satisfying moments was when we discovered Hodor's name and how he got it. I was thinking, "Oh my God this character has been around for six seasons and this is just paying off now with the set up back then."

Alan Taylor on the set of season seven in Iceland. Helen Sloan/HBO

So it's true — all of the characters have such big arcs and he's got them so mapped out in his head that the story is functioning moment to moment but also in these grand story gestures over several seasons, and that's what makes it so rich.

We were in Malta shooting episode ten of the first season, and the show wasn't a big deal yet and we weren't being very secretive because nobody cared yet, and [Martin] just sort of mentioned in passing, "Oh well it's all about Dany and Jon Snow" and at the time I thought, "Really? I thought it was about Sean Bean and Robb Stark?"

But he knew from the very beginning where he was driving and now we're starting to see that come to fruition. We know that it's circling tighter and tighter on Dany and Jon and their partnership is starting to form, you know, "fire and ice."

Renfro: Do you know if he was specific back then about them becoming romantically involved, since that's really only just become "official" in this latest season seven episode?

Taylor: I think it's become more official but it's been coming for awhile, so much so that it's not only starting to happen but Tyrion sees it coming enough that he's making fun of her for it. He can see what's brewing.

I can't say much more about what [Martin] said about where we're going with Dany and Jon because that leaps ahead into the next season, but to me the revelation was that, at the time, we had a hundred characters and yet he knew it's about these two.

Daenerys and Jon are falling for each other. HBO

So in my episode we get to take a big step forward in that Jon is no longer competing with her — he was willing to bow down and recognize her as queen. That's a huge step. And also they're holding hands, and the look that she gives him in that scene where she almost swoons and draws back ... it's pretty clear where this is headed, but it's not there yet.

Renfro: Another thing I was wondering if you could give us clarity on was the terminology of what just happened to Viserion. Some people are calling him an "ice dragon" now, others say "wight dragon." Was there a word for his new state you used on set?

Taylor: [Laughter] No, it's funny, we just had to take him up to the moment where he reanimates and opens his eye. It's the next episode's problem to decide what to call him.

I do know how he behaves later on, and I know some things about what happens with him. Some pretty big things are approaching. They now have this weapon and the game changes very fast, as you'll see.

Taylor: Yeah that's the shorthand we used, too. The Night King now has nuclear capabilities — so all the battle plans all the chronologies and expectations are shifted now. But I don't actually have a name for [Viserion], I'll have to defer to the internet.

Renfro: Another thing people are obsessing over is this weird moment with Jon Snow's sword, Longclaw, where people thought the eyes of the wolf "opened" right before Jon came out of the water.

Taylor: That is so funny, somebody else mentioned that to me and I haven't got a clue what they're talking about. So either this sword is magic and it's doing stuff on its own or something happened. I'm going to have to go back and watch that moment close up and in slow motion to see what's going on there. I can say that there was no intention for that to be the case.

Renfro: I'll tell you my theory — I'm assuming that it was cold on set or in the simulated ice lake, and I thought that the pommel of Longclaw is just slightly frosted over and then Jon comes out of the water and splashes the sword which washes away any sort of frosty residue.

Taylor: That sounds very likely because there was a lot of conversation about frost because he climbs out of the water and collapses on the ice and there's a slight time cut, so when we see him staggering to shore he's frosted up and not wet anymore because everything freezes that fast.

So I know there was discussion about starting to show that process, and so they probably amped it up and used whatever they could to show the shift. So I think that's a very good theory and I'm gonna go with that one until I look at it more closely and see if I can figure out what's going on. But I spoke to somebody earlier and he was convinced it was a really loaded symbolic moment of Longclaw.

Taylor: I'm with you. But what's great is that people are analyzing everything with such detail. It's good people are pouring so much attention into it — sometimes it blows up in our face. Like there's a heated conversation about how fast ravens can fly now because of the story in my episode. Sometimes it's not comfortable to have people analyzing things too closely, but it's cool that they want to.

Renfro: Does that surprise you that people are taking the realism of this fantasy story this seriously?

Taylor: I think it's great. We have lizards as big as 747s who can blow fire but the fact that [fans] still want it to be believable and real is great. That means they're expecting that, which means they've had a diet of that and it means the show is basically achieving that. And so if they want to get out their maps of Westeros and a protractor and measure the speed of a raven and fight about it, then that's good.